She draped her arm over his waist and pressed her hips to his. “Have you looked in the mirror lately?”
He exhaled a breathy laugh and sealed his mouth to hers. She met his desire with a needful, eager kiss and eased onto her back. Caden slid his leg over her thighs and the skin-to-skin contact spurred him to deepen the kiss.
“Bella,” he whispered against her lips, then kissed her again. “I feel like such a letcher around you.”
She looked up at him through a sexy haze of desire so thick he had to kiss her again.
“If you’re a letcher, then what does that make me?” She ran her fingers up his back and brought her mouth to his shoulder.
The warm, sensual strokes of her tongue on his heated skin nearly did him in. When she drew back, her eyes darkened seductively. A quick sweep of their surroundings confirmed that they were far enough away from anyone else that as long as he kept his back to the other side of the beach, he could tease her right back without being seen.
He slipped a finger beneath the tie on her hip and leaned down, grazing her lips with his. He’d never done anything like this before—right out in the open—and it amped up the thrill a zillion times.
“You are a naughty, naughty girl, Bella Abbascia.”
Heat flared in her eyes.
She wrapped her slender fingers around his wrist. He glanced over each shoulder in a way that he hoped was casual, trying to mask the urgency racing through him, and he wondered if the risk they were taking was making this as exciting for her as it was for him. When he met her gaze again, Bella dragged her tongue across her lower lip, leaving it glistening wet, and pulling a groan from his lungs.
“Touch me,” she whispered.
“How about you let me lead?” He kissed the corners of her mouth and licked the glistening streak on her lower lip.
He brought his mouth to her neck and kissed a path to her ear, and a needy whimper escaped her lungs.
“You can plead all you want. You’re not getting what you want until I’m good and ready,” he whispered.
“You’re so unfair.”
“Am I?” He sucked her earlobe.
“Caden,” she said in one long breath.
“I love hearing my name come off your lips like a plea.” He felt her shudder and kissed her. He pulled back, now in full tease mode, and pressed featherlight kisses around her lips.
“Unfair.” Her eyes fluttered closed, and her arm drifted to the sand beside her.
He covered her mouth with his and took her in a deep, soulful kiss, swallowing the sexy little sounds that she tried so hard to repress. When their lips finally parted, her eyes fluttered open. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer.
“Wow,” she whispered. “Those were great kisses.”
She closed her eyes for a beat and he touched his forehead to hers.
I’m so in love with you. He silenced the words that ached to be heard with another soft kiss.
BELLA DIDN’T KNOW how long she lay on her back with her eyes closed, trying to quell the desire that snaked through her veins and stole her ability to think clearly, but when she finally opened her eyes, Caden was about fifty pages into a novel. He was perched on his elbows beside her. He squinted against the sun.
“Hey there, beautiful.”
“Sorry for zoning out.” She rolled onto her side and ran her hand along the muscles that flanked his broad back.
“Don’t be. I’ll take it as a compliment.” He leaned over and kissed her.
“Your kisses blew my mind.” She smiled and gazed into his eyes. She could lie right there beside him all day long and be perfectly content. Happy, she corrected herself. Perfectly happy.
“Can’t ask for more than that.” He set down his book. “Do you want to rent a boat?”
“Sure.”
They walked down the beach hand in hand, and for the first time in a very long time, Bella felt like she was part of a real couple. She’d never felt very connected to Jay, so he’d always felt a little like a friend with benefits. Even with the other guys she’d dated throughout the years, she’d never felt the same deep connection she felt with Caden. Holding his hand wasn’t high school exciting. It wasn’t a precursor to sex. It was so much more than those things. Holding Caden’s hand felt like their lives were joining together and becoming one. She could see herself years from now sitting on the beach reading beside him; she could picture him graying around the temples with crow’s feet around his beautiful dark eyes. None of those thoughts were part of her summertime plan, and yet they were there, as real and as present as the man who instilled them.
Caden rowed them out to the middle of the lake. Children’s voices drifted farther into the distance, birds flapped as they landed on the water, and Bella soaked in the peaceful moment.
“I kind of like this whole setup.” She leaned back and stretched her legs out in front of her, wiggling her toes between Caden’s bare feet. “You can row me around anytime you want. You know, if you get bored one day and just feel like being a sexy, shirtless water taxi.”
He shook his head, but his smile reached his eyes. “Can I?”
“Uh-huh. I mean, I wouldn’t fight it or anything.”
Bella spread her towel out on the metal seat and lay horizontally, dangling her toes in the water. Her arms fell limply to her sides, and she closed her eyes. It had been a perfect morning, and now, as the boat moved swiftly through the water, the comfortable silence that had become familiar no longer surprised her.
From behind closed lids, a shadow darkened the sky and the air cooled as, Bella assumed, they passed beneath the bridge. When her closed lids were struck by the blazing sun again, she knew they’d passed through to the other side. The lake was large, and in all the years Bella had been going there, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen people go beyond the bridge. She kept her eyes closed and listened for sounds of others. She liked drifting along without knowing exactly where she was, letting Caden make the decisions of where they were headed. She trusted him, and that thought nestled into her heart like a bear bedding down for a long, cold winter.
She heard the sweeping of the oars in the water cease and felt the boat drifting slower. She heard Caden sigh. He sounded as relaxed as she felt, and she wondered what he was doing, but the moment was so blissfully peaceful that she didn’t dare open her eyes. The boat rocked, and she sensed Caden’s closeness before she felt his mouth on hers. She opened her lips and welcomed his warm, loving kiss. Keeping her eyes closed, she relished in the anticipation of not knowing what might come next. He kissed her like he was making love to her mouth, and her mind drifted far, far away.
“No one’s around. I promise.”
She trusted him completely. The risk heightened the excitement, and she hoped he was feeling the same thrill as she was. She reached for him, eyes still closed, and felt his hip, then followed the line of it to his firm butt.